


Mad Girl's Love Song.

by Daisyrred



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisyrred/pseuds/Daisyrred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Odesta oneshots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Manic and I

**Author's Note:**

> Once, when they came back from the victory tour, she asked him. "Am I mad?" He had kissed her, the first time he kissed her "Oh sweetheart," he said. "We all are." Finnick and Annie oneshot.

**I.**

  
Sometimes she is back in the arena again. The slam of a door is the boom of a canon. The career's beefy arm slices through the air. She sees the last desperate look Zander's eyes a bright clear impossible blue the sea on a late summer morning, before they glazed over forever his head bounds across the ground, his pale blonde hair flops over his face, his tongue lulls from his mouth. She opens her mouth to scream but nothing comes out. The earth rumbles and rips apart under her feet she's running, she's falling. Bits of rock fly through the air. Fast. Slow. She can see each piece individually. She reaches out to touch one. Then Finnick pulls her back, she's in his arms. He whispers softly in her ear.  
"I'm here, I'm here and I'm never letting go."  
The arena is gone… for now.

  
Sometimes she can sit for hours silent and utterly still. When she does that she's not here anymore and she's not quite sure where she goes. Finnick asked her once. She said she watches the world from under water, under the glassy silvery skin. Hearing little, seeing strange and beautiful things sometimes, butterflies with tangerine wings, schools of silver fish swim through the air. She doesn't mind as long as he's there her green eyed boy, when she comes back. He calls it her sea levels.

Sometimes she is manic. She storms and screams till she's hoarse. Shakes violently and rocks back and forth. Flashbacks erupt through her mind and her vision in scarred lightening glares of things she doesn't want to see. Sometimes Finnick's not there and she remembers she's not really there either and then she's lost entirely in reality and the walls close in so tightly she can feel the weight of the air.  
So she drifts away.

Sometimes she can be by herself, she can sit in the eye of her thoughts for days and there is nowhere else she would rather be. She requests an audience with her demons. She wants to know how ugly she is, how much they all suffered, the blood, the gore, Finnick hates her, and she's a selfish, selfish bitch. Pull back the veil, let them in, let them in. She wants them.

Sometimes she can't be alone at all, every single thought hurts. She can't breathe. She can't escape and screaming doesn't help. She hides and shivers against his chest smells the salt of the sea and the shaving cream he uses sharp and cool. Let’s go and sobs in despair.

**II.**

  
Once, she asked him- after they came back from the victory tour- twelve days of hell, twelve days of being half dragged out onto stage. She could barely speak the words came out of her mouth jumbled and broken. She couldn't understand herself or the alien language she was speaking. She gripped at the microphone and smiled frozenly at the faceless crowd below. She pressed her hands over her ears. She wondered if she is real, she is always standing on the edge of control. They held tight to her, no chance of escape.  
I'm not real, I'm not real.

  
They put her in beautiful dresses: lace, satin and scarlet velvet. Piled her brown hair on the top of her head, draped it over her shoulders. Painted on a different face, covered her with jewels. Capitol men with charming bright white smiles and too loud laughs leaned forward and pinched her breasts so hard it brought tears to her eyes.  
"Am I mad?"  
He had kissed her then long and softly, the first time he kissed her. She realised she loved him. It had made her so happy to love. Her heart swollen to twice its size, she smiled and smiled. He couldn't help mirroring her. "Oh sweetheart," he said "Of course, we all are."

  
**III.**

  
Finnick's gone. They keep on telling her that, they don't let her go away anymore. She is stuck in this white room. The Doctor's with kind if slightly exasperated eyes say things like: anxiety, stress, and trauma. They give her pills, pale pink that taste like sour paper. Finnick's gone.

  
**IV.**

  
She stopped talking for a year when she was eighteen. That was when she found the cove hidden by an eight foot wall of slimy black boulders, she used to go for walks with Finnick and he would talk and flirt and she would say nothing, just hold onto his hand and laugh sometimes. She walked up to the edge of the cove. The sea the same colour of Zander's eyes swelled and ripped into lacy white waves. She stepped over the edge and dropped like a stone.  
"Annie, Annie!" He screamed by the time he had clambered over the edge he was crying. She was sitting in the sand.  
"Oh god, I thought…" It was her turn to hold him to dry his tears, to never let go. In the cove, that day she found the most perfect pearl the colour of coal.  
"It's so lovely," He pushed aside her long brown hair. "You're lovely, no one has hair like this in the capitol… actually I'm not sure if anyone has hair in the capitol period."  
"Do people in the capitol take off their wigs when they sleep with you or do they fall off?" She asked. He laughed until he cried. When she started talking she didn't stop. "I love you, I love you and I love you."  
The next time he went to the capitol she took the pearl and hid it under a pile of rocks. Every day she removed one. She did that every hunger games to stop her going insane and he always came back. Always.

  
**V.**

  
She doesn't believe them. He's sitting on the end of her bed, can't they see him? He is bronze haired and green eyed with his dimpled smile. She jabbers and jabbers about him until the words join up and become nonsense. It is his turn to drift in and out. She stuffs the pills beneath the heavy mattress and walks right into his arms.

**VI.**

  
"Most people think I'm a vain prat." He said after the first time they made love, she curled up against his side.  
"I don't," She promised. "I love you,"  
"Entirely reciprocated," Annie scowled at him,  
"Oh you really are irresistible I love you too, more, lots."  
VII.  
She is thoughts, memories and madness. Very little else, they force her to take the pills shove her into reality. She fights. She claws in a way she never could fight in the arena. She needs him, don't they understand she needs him. They stick a needle and pale green fluid sinks into her arm. The last thing she truly remembers before she went insane. She doesn't count Zander's death. Was the sunrise on top of the mountain, it was so beautiful. Lavender and slate grey clouds pushed to the side, a blush of blue striped across the sky surrounded by hazy gold and pink of the dawning sun. So beautiful and so fake, she didn't realise the capitol could create something so beautiful. She hadn't thought it was possible. She had hated them for it. She told Finnick that, she told him everything.  
"I'm going to marry you one day," He said. They were laying together, in their secret place a cove on the golden sand and dried dark seaweed brought in by the tide. He had his hand in his and he kept kissing the palm.  
"Aren't you supposed to ask?"  
"Oh right, Annie Cresta will you take this incredible honour and become my wife?"  
"Oh should I be so honoured…"  
"I'm sorry did I mention I'm a vain prat?" She rolls over so she is on top of him and kisses his lips, his throat and his forehead.  
"My vain prat."  
"I am here really," He whispers gently in her ear. "So are you darling, don't forget it."  
She laughs and takes hold of his hand but it feels wrong somehow. They've taken away her ring, the ring he gave her on their wedding day with its delicate silver band, square sapphire, held in by two seed pearls. One day when she's feeling sane, sane ish she asks for it back. The Doctors exchange looks. She watches them coolly.  
"I'm not going to kill myself with it." She says, for the first time in several years she feels cross and irritable, it's an odd feeling.  
"What do you think I'll do swallow it?" She slides it back onto her ring finger and closes her eyes puts her hands over her heart and floats away but she can't float far enough.  
Johanna comes to visit her. Her skin is a little yellow and her eyes large and dark. She smiles sourly. "I'm mad too now." She says when Annie says nothing after a while.  
"We're all mad, sweetheart." She says and kisses her hand. Johanna bursts into tears, somewhere dimly Annie thinks she is probably one of the only people who isn't shocked to find Johanna can cry.

  
**VIII.**

  
At last they tell her she is better, well better ish. She still sees Finnick but she doesn't argue into hysteria when they tell her he's dead. She can't bring herself to ignore him like they tell her to. She's Annie Cresta she's still a little vague and not quite there. They look at each other and think well we tried. They give her grey military uniforms to wear, one day someone brushes out her hair and braids it, she hates that she wants to hide behind her hair. They take her to a room with the other victors and President Coin who gives her a sickly smile. She looks at the table. Someone says President Snow will die today. Annie feels nothing she doesn't want anyone to die but even now she fears President Snow and his bloody mouth, she doesn't like fear, she doesn't like feeling but somehow she's still here. Katniss comes and sit down next to her, puts a white rose onto the table they smile weakly at each other. The only words she hears are 'Capitol' 'Hunger Games' and 'Children' she wants to cover her hears rock and shake. But she doesn't do that so much anymore. Peeta the blonde boy who made her beautiful wedding cake votes no, angrily.  
"Annie?" He asks her. She thinks she sees Finnick walking into the room but when she blinks it is only in her mind's eye."  
I vote no with Peeta," She says. "So would Finnick if he were here."  
"But he isn't, because Snow's mutts killed him," Johanna reminds her  
.But Annie has gone again. Truly gone for the next few days, she comes to in the hospital. Johanna is there, Snow and Coin are dead, and she promises the vote for the hunger games has been declared void.  
"What about Katniss?" She asks worriedly.  
Johanna shakes her head "She's on trial. I'm glad Coin's dead,"  
They look around the white room with its padded walls and the smell of disinfectant.  
"Shall we get out of here?"  
"Hell, yes." Annie says the words slip out of her mouth without her really thinking about it. "Hell fucking yes."  
The next time a nurse comes they sit like wide eyed angels on the bed. She turns her back, she forgets they are victors. They run around her back shut the door and lock it and tear down the corridor, Annie runs like she hasn't run since before her Hunger Games. With the speed and flight that earned her the seven in the training scores. The ground feels real beneath her feet, she is real. By the time they get onto the train for district four they are laughing and laughing. No one tries to stop them.

  
**IX.**

  
She doesn't realise he is there not for a long time. It is only when she goes to visit Katniss's mother, her arms full of wild flowers daisy, rue, lavender and sweet yellow primroses. On the day Katniss is finally released- that someone notices. She doesn't like hospitals, so she doesn't hear her the first time.  
"I'm sorry?"  
"How far along are you dear?" Mrs Everdeen says. She should panic, freak out. She is growing something inside her, something she has to look after she can barely look after herself. She thinks all this but none of the thoughts drown her. She cradles her bump. She drifts she dreams of green eyed little girls and boys with dimpled smiles. She knew he wouldn't leave her, she knew.  
Sometimes she forgets and the tide comes in. She runs through the howling wind and rain. Stumbles over the cliff she screams in frustration, kneels on the damp sand throws away the dark pebbles. She has to find it her fingers scrabble at the ground. She has to find it. Finnick kneels down beside her.  
"Go home sweetheart,"  
"I can't- I have to." Annie explains to her fingers.  
"It'll be alright, I love you."  
So she walks back out of the freezing night and into her house. Her toddler ran into the corridor and hugged her legs. She kissed his soft bronze curls. He has enormous green eyes just like his father.  
"Look mummy," he holds out his chubby little hand and drops the pearl into her long fingered one. She doesn't cry in front of him, she's his mother. Don't look in the wrong places. She reminds herself, come back home. Back home to her beautiful little boy born from love.  
She's ok, ok ish.


	2. She crept up on me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite everything, he has not cried since he was ten years old, but he cries then. Her arms are around him. The sea rushes in, everything around him brakes and crumbles. They have smashed a fist through the prison bars. I love you. It is her second sentence. I love you, I love you and I love you. Annie, Annie, I love you too.   
> (My Manic and I: Finnick's POV)

He remembers the green-eyed tribute with the bedraggled brown hair before she became his Annie. For a moment, he sees her on reaping day, a stormy day. There was a sense of relief amongst the crowd that their young-men were not out fishing and battling the perilous waves. She volunteered for a little girl a tiny twelve year old with enormous eyes. She had been so brave then, he corrected himself no she was always brave far braver than she was damaged. She volunteered her voice both delicate and steely through the crowd and the roaring wind. She volunteered but really, it was a sacrifice, she meant to die for the child. Her dark dress flapping at her limbs her hair streaming behind in waves as she made her way up to the platform. He thought he was looking at a dead girl.

She gritted her teeth during weapons training. She did not believe she had a chance. He remembers the feeling of her slightly shaking hands in his own as he tried to draw her arm back across the bow. Still she was very pretty the capitol liked her well enough. He could hope, but she did not want to hope. Finnick felt almost nothing then, perhaps a need to protect? A desire not to send the lamb out to slaughter?

Desperation? Duty? but not love.

He did what he could during the games, because it was his job. He attended the outrageous parties and viewings where they re-watched the children die under the gaudy silver lights. He drank champagne, gossiped and flirted. He presented her, as an investment. She is a lovely girl is she not? Eyes like emeralds, pearly skin and long oak hair. Lovely girl. They buy her things and he gets into bed with them. Love-making or whatever you call it, is a business transaction like everything else in this sickly city. The Capitol is run on capital.

After Zander dies… she becomes the poor little mad girl. No one is going to invest in that, more importantly no one wants that mess in bed with them. They watch her rock back and forth on the screen hiding behind the rocks. They talked sugary sympathy to him but their hearts and purses were elsewhere, under the covers with him half the time. "Oh darling, can we not do business now?" And then it was his duty to try not to show that to him they were almost exactly the same things.

Eventually after she has survived (barely) for three days. He ends up in bed with Flavia the head-game maker. She should be expecting it what he whispers in her ears. Her worst secret, the one she would have taken to the grave if he had let her.

She looked at him, the contacts which turned her eyes a vibrant purple had fallen out, somewhere. Leaving them a rather nice speckled hazel colour, they were always the most pretty without the crap on their faces. She, Finnick realised was as trapped as he was.. But he didn't care, not at the moment he could be ruthless when he wanted to be it was all about winning the games after-all whether he was in the arena or not.

He knew what she was going to do.

They flooded the arena. Swimming was second instinct, standing watching under the big screen he longed to dive down into the waters too, to be reborn from the waves. As she rose and rose to the surface. Annie won without blood on her milk-white hands. Lucky girl, Lovely girl, Loony girl. Flavia disappeared, heart-attack they were all heart-attacks. Snow had struck like a snake, business as usual. Nothing changed.

He knew something was wrong when they brought her back up to her prep team wrapped in oyster coloured silk, her long brown hair piled on top of her head an her lovely green eyes utterly lost. The Doctors who were supposed to put her back together had failed she was utterly shattered. Mags and he exchanged looks. There is no guidebook for madness, so they improvised with quicksilver speed. She curls into a ball and sings "Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast, this is la vie en rose." When he tries to get her for her interview, the sound is so sweet and pure and when she touches his face and looks at him like he is the most beautiful thing in the world. It breaks his heart the force her into the glare of the camera.

For some is a dangerous move by the Capitol she's something they can barely control. Still she has her advantages. It is quite clear why the Capitol wants to keep her alive, it is a warning. Through, the pretence and masks the rest of the victors wear, the smiles and the make-up, this is what you are as really they say holding up Annie. This is what we can do to you. This is what we are doing to you. So what? Nothing changes.

Her mother understandably was horrified by the state of her seventeen-year-old daughter. She became grey and tired overnight. Annie hides in the blue white house, one of the twelve little boxes the Capitol built to put them in and he could hear the laughter and the screams through the walls. Poor, little mad girl.

Things changed at the victory tour, she was no longer manic per say. Distressed yes, she could not slip away not in the capitol's clutches like she did back at home.

"I'm playing a game." She confided in him

"Is it fun?" He asked.

"I keep on having to remember I'm real, it's not much fun. But it makes a change you know." She grinned at him. Such a lovely smile.

Finnick knew he had not meant to kiss he after she asked him if she was mad, but the expression on her face. He could have quite happily died amongst her joy. Love… maybe, perhaps. However, love had a price he was sure of it, he could not risk paying he did not want to force Annie to pay it either. He stole away back to the capitol, or perhaps he was stolen. However, this time, he did not just lie their bored with someone he hated all pampered and painted in his arms. He tried, the way he had never tried before he went to bed that year with the greatest beauties the capitol had on offer .But he couldn't forget her, the tears rolling his thirteen year old tribute's face during training reminded him of her. And in the dark nights lying in a tangle of sex, sweat and sheets he thought about Annie, guiltily he did not even want her here in the capitol, in his thoughts. Too dangerous.

Johanna Mason won that year. She was full of fire, full of rage. The same way Annie was full of water.

"Be careful." He says, during the ceremonial dinner. She looked at him with mistrustful eyes, clearly not a fan of golden boys, her eyes had been on the cleavage belonging his accompanying mentor a pretty red-head all through dinner.

"Why?"

He smiles at her, the smile of the capitol's darling.

"You are not yourself." He says. "Not anymore."

Her return smile says fuck it. He remembers the delight of the feeling in defying President Snow all those years ago, fuck it and fuck everything. But he knows just how much loss is attached to it, he thinks of Annie oh fuck it. Fuck it.

Annie is herself. She is just a bit mad but there is no pretence in it, she is here or she is not. He clings to that it is his hope, if she can be herself…

When he gets home… she has stopped talking, she stopped talking the day he left, her mother says. The day after he came back he found her walking one day to the port, dressed in her nightgown her arms full of bread. He followed her. He did not try to stop her. The children of the poor fisherman, grimy from the slums by the port greeted her like a visiting angel. The bread fell from her hands and she drifted away. He can do nothing but follow.

He tries to bring her back, for a bit more for her mother's desperation than his own. He can bear it because she laughs a lot, genuine laughter he thinks and he is happy enough with simply that. They walk a lot along by the cliffs the salt, the waves biting into skin and hair. He flirts and she laughs and mumbles. Imperfect pieces they do not quite fit together. She squeezes his hand. Or maybe they do. She brings him back too he stops thinking when she is there.

"Do you love her?" Johanna asks, when they meet again at her victory tour. He realised he had said her name aloud. He does not know how to answer love is such a dangerous thing, its new and terrifying. Love is revolutionary. He lets the question drift too the breeze. He does not want to answer. Love…Whenever he thinks about it he always is blocked by the Capitol it hangs over his head

In the end, she says it first. It has been almost a year of silence and he has almost given up. Fear pure fear, when she tumbles over the edge down into the soft yellow sand. He thought the look in her eyes was goodbye, goodnight. Despite everything, he has not cried since he was ten years old, but he cries then. Her arms are around him. The sea rushes in, everything around him brakes and crumbles. They have smashed a fist through the prison bars. I love you. It is her second sentence. I love you, I love you and I love you.

Annie, Annie, I love you too.

He can and he will keep her safe. It is a promise, they do not own Annie they never have and they never will. He makes sure of that. Love is not simple, yes it is. It is three simple words and a promise. It is unfortunate, no one has bothered to inform the capitol this. Love if not a moneymaker can easily make a weapon, far more effective than poison. But their manipulation of his love will not tame the anger. Every time he is forced to be unfaithful, every time she loses it tells him she is afraid and every single god-damn reaping day. Another fist through the bars. Anger swells and fear fades a little bit each time.

The girl on fire… the girl who managed to escape well kind of: Katniss Everdeen. He was not stupid when she held out the red berries for Panem to see. It was for defiance, for life, for revenge not love. He thinks what if? The berries wonder up to Annie's mouth, in his mind's eye he mirrors her. Save her or let her chose? Die together or make her live.

He surprised that he knows the answer. It is not worth living here. So what are you going to do?

"Clever girl," Johanna says flicking her spiky streaked hair.

"Stupid girl." He laughs. Don't you know what they are going to do to you?

The truth is they are not safe. Whatever he promises something is happening. Finnick has never been one to resist too much goes with the tide. Something is changing the girl on fire is catching.

"Do you think she loves him?" Annie asks when they watch the beginning of the victory tour. Sprawled out in the blue ice and snow they share a kiss.

"No." He says.

"I'm not sure." She says, "She could have run him through."

"I didn't say she was heartless." He said.

"Do you think the other victors believe you could be in bed with me right now?" She asked. "You're all so cynical, you lose track of all the faces you put on."

Maybe she was right. The screen crackles with the half sound of a bullet, before Caesar Flickerman's face resurfaces trying to look as if nothing had happened. Fire, fire, liar, liar. If she loves him, there is a price to pay. Maybe it is time to stop paying. Maybe it is time to say no. He goes back to the Capitol, for the victory dinner, but he does not see the girl on fire. The new games-maker puts a hand on his shoulder.

"This is not romance." He says, "This is revolution." Perhaps they are the same thing.


	3. There is a another world, well there must be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN Quite a dark one, I'm afraid. Warning for attempted suicide, suicidal thoughts please please do not read if this might upset or trigger you. Inspired by the song Asleep by the wonderful Smiths, check it out. Also Dorothy Parker's Resume and Sylvia Plath's Cut. I do not own the hunger games or any of the above wonderful works of art. My writing would certainly be a lot better if I did! Reviews appreciated. xxxxx

"There is another world,

There is a better world,

Well there must be."

Asleep, The Smiths.

"Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live."

Resume, Dorothy Parker

"What a thrill- my thumb instead of an onion." 

Cut, Sylvia Plath.

He kissed her forehead and she woke up. Just like that. Briefly a fairytale his sister had loved as a child came to mind but vanished again as he bit it down. Kisses would not wake all slumbers and love could just as easily be poison as antidote. That was reality.

 

She had lost weight, weight she couldn't really afford to lose. Corpse Bride. Her eyes, that used to light up with such careless delight, were sunken, her skin sallow, even her lips were grey, Finnick hadn't seen that before, well not a living person. When she smiled, the bottom lip cracked and a thin bead of blood rested on the curve, a touch of colour in a empty face. He resisted the urge to kiss it away. She reached for him and he took both her hands in his. Thick white bandages bound her wrists, she must have meant it, he thinks, to try so hard. She sighed and closed her large eyes, leaning back to the starchy pillow taking him with her, he stretched out of his chair and put bronze head next to her brown curls his mouth on her knuckles.

Neither of them spoke for some time. It wasn't unusual for Annie to be silent, Finnick usually more than filled in the gaps she left. But it was a first for the both of them to be quiet listening to the ragged breaths of two people who could not open their mouths for fear of screaming.

"There seem to be rather a lot of tubes in me." Annie said at last, she smiled again something like the sweet insanity he was used to.

He sits up. "Should of thought about that before," He said with a light heartedness he didn't feel.

"Oh retrospect… how does it go?" She rolled her eyes up and addressed the ceiling, in a slow tired chant.

"Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live."

Finnick clasped in hands as if in prayer to God he had long abandoned as the details of planned and abandoned suicides passed over his head. He felt his eyes burning a odd sensation he hasn't cried since he was nine, his lashes when he blinked were wet, a tear rolled down his cheek and into his mouth.

"Finn," She moaned softly, as he tried to brush his tears right from his eyes. She manoeuvred around the restraints of the IV lines to take his face in her hands.

"Don't please don't cry."

He looked up into her eyes bright- brighter than he had seen them in months- with concern, tried so hard to keep his voice steady. "So are you? Going to live that is?"

She dropped her head onto his, they were completely alone but even if the room had been filled she spoke so quietly no one else would have heard.

"If you don't leave again I might."

He pushed back as if he had been shocked scanned her face frantically.

"For God's sake, I was away five minutes Annie."

She steeled herself folding her arms across her chest.

"No you weren't, I was so afraid Finnick, you have no idea…"

"Oh right! so I have no idea how it feels to be afraid for the person I love."

Annie covered her ears immediately. "Please don't shout,"

"I only go because if I didn't they'd kill you." He says more quietly. His sister who believed in fairy tales is dead, his mother who whispered them to sleep is also gone. Annie is the only one left, Annie is the hold they have, a woman with a self-destruct button at that, the irony does not escape him.

But she shakes her head like a animal in torment.

"No darling no, its not your fault you can't think, I think that. It's … there's nothing to be done they have both of us by the balls. If there was a point of this life, if we could do the normal things people in love marry, have babies, keep them safe and die of old age, then yes of course. You know being mad is so tiring, so god-awful I just want to close my eyes forever, just melt into oblivion. But I could struggle if there was a chance for us but there isn't…"

She stopped and looked down at her damaged wrists with such a furious gaze that it seemed to Finnick she intended to rip the wounds open with her eyes alone.

"How long do we have?"

"Ten minutes,"

"Good… there going to punish me for this aren't they?"

Finnick shrugged. "Who's left sweetheart?" He asked. "Who's left? I'm far too expensive to kill."

Silence again. He lies down by his mad girl, this is love, he thinks feeling every breath against his chest. Annie had saved him, a star in a dark night, a wild-flower in a battlefield and now she was going to destroy him.

" Can I ask you something?"

"Of course my love."

"What was it like?"

"Can I pass?" She asked her lips on his neck. "I don't want to make you cry."

"Just tell me."

Her green eyes narrowed with concentration holding the memory in mind's eye like water in cupped hands. "The blade hurt." She confined. "Slicing your skin does apparently,"

"Apparently." He agreed.

"There was this line: What a thrill my thumb instead of a onion, went round and round my head. The water was pretty all pink. I was very calm, and very mad. For some reason I thought everything was alright that you were going to be fine, that you were safe, that it was ok to go." She choked suddenly. "I don't know how I could have been so selfish."

"It's not selfish to want to end pain." He murmurs.

"I'd be joining you shortly anyway," He shrugs.

"Can't get safer than dead." He says with a small smile.

"Oh you can," Annie retorts. "Not to be born at all, our children are safe right here in ghostly arms that will never hold them."

He takes her in his own warm, strong arms, kisses his way to her mouth

"I'm the selfish one, I love you too much to let you go."

"It's not selfish to want the love of your life to not kill herself…" She sighs relaxing deeper into his embrace. " Though sometimes I think I'm more the torment of your life, then I realise I love and respect you too much to go away and let you live a blissfully shallow experience in the arms of the capitol."

He looks down at her with the smile that had broken a thousand hearts.

"I choose torment anyway." He says. "Far more poetic."

 

Annie falls asleep before his limited visiting time is over, before he goes he whispers in her ear.

"We'll make another world, just stay awake, my love and we'll see."


End file.
